This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful I am not them.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s like Christmas without the pressure of gift giving. It’s simple and spiritual. We stop and give thanks to our Maker for His blessings to us. This year some of our family, about 30 of us, will gather to enjoy a time of prayer and fellowship around the family table. No doubt the conversation will begin with family and football, bridge into politics, and then culminate with the global situation and religion before we all slip into the Thanksgiving day food coma. Yep, it will be great. From the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in the morning to the Aggie game in the evening, we will enjoy good food and good company.

Dr. Omar, the last neurosurgeon in eastern Aleppo, who declined to provide his full name out of fear for his safety, sounded desperate when reached at the height of the bombing on Friday.

“We no longer have hospitals to operate in,” he said. “You can’t imagine what it’s like living in Aleppo right now. It feels like we are living in hell. Our neighborhoods are in flames, and bombs are raining down from the sky. We urgently call on the international community to send help.

Wait. The international community? That’s us. They are calling on us to send help. This Thanksgiving we can’t just be thankful we are not them. That’s American but not Christian. Let us pray for the hundreds of thousands living in hell on earth. Ask God to intervene. Ask God for wisdom to know how we can influence the church and the government in the U.S. to help. Ask God to give us hands and feet eager to serve and go to the real people of cities like Aleppo, Syria.